Brookings September 24, 2019
America spent $3.5 trillion on health care in 2017, totaling 17.9 percent of the country’s GDP. Health spending accounts for more than one-quarter of all federal spending and is expected to double over the next decade. Without policies in place to control the growth of health care spending, there is a risk that a large amount of the economy’s future growth will be absorbed by an excessively costly health systems, without appreciable gains in actual health.
Joseph Antos, senior fellow at AEI, and the late Alice M. Rivlin offer a new vision for health reform that builds on the existing health care system. Their approach arms purchasers, including consumers, physicians, insurers, employers, and the government to make cost-effective decisions in...